


Forget Me Not

by scruffandyarn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bank Robbery, Cancer, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 17:49:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2630810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scruffandyarn/pseuds/scruffandyarn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desperate times call for desperate measures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget Me Not

Sam was prepared.

It was something he prided himself on, the way he readied himself for any situation.  It was how he got into the law program at Stanford.  It was how he was able to handle his alcoholic father succumbing to his addiction.  It was how he’d known what to say when Dean had introduced him to his boyfriend-now fiance, Cas.

Of course, there were some things he couldn’t have been prepared for.  Dean’s diagnosis topped the list.  What healthy thirty-year-old expects to be told they have colon cancer when they go in for their yearly physical?  That one had thrown them all for a loop.

Naturally, Sam decided to read up on the disease.  The diagnosis explained Dean’s near constant abdominal pain, his fatigue, and the weight loss Sam noticed the last time he’d been out to visit.  And Dean only mentioned the blood _after_ his doctor’s appointment.

Another thing he wasn’t prepared for was the price tag that came with treatment.  Thankfully, Dean was in Stage II of the disease, so the prognosis was…brighter than it would have been if it had been caught later.  Surgery would be necessary to remove the cancerous part of his colon, and chemotherapy would likely follow that up to decrease the likelihood of the cancer returning.  Unfortunately, the medical insurance Dean had through his work covered very little of the bill they’d be facing.

Sam dropped out of school the day after he’d gotten the call from Dean.  His adviser had been about ready to throttle him, but once he’d explained the situation, the man was much more understanding.  But even without college fees, moving in with Dean and Cas to save on rent, and pawning nearly everything of value that any of them owned, there was no way Sam, Dean, and Cas could come up with that kind of money.

But Sam was determined to figure this out.  He wasn’t about to let his older brother and father-figure give up just because of a lack of funds.  Sam would give him his own colon if that was an option.  

At times, though, it seemed like Dean had given up.  On more than one occasion, he’d suggested they use what money they did have for a burial plot instead of worrying about surgery.  Sam would get angry and they’d both wind up practically screaming at each other, but it was Cas who finally put an end to Dean’s comments.  Yelling about being promised a wedding that Dean wasn’t allowed out of was what stopped most of Dean’s remarks.  Still, the disease, as well as the stress of affording the treatment weighed heavily in Dean’s shoulders.

Then it happened.  One day, while Sam was, yet again, going over potential sources of income, Dean—being his usual, witty self—mentioned how they might as well rob a bank if they ever planned on actually being able to afford his treatments.  It had been a joke, but as Sam lay awake in bed that night, he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

Three days later, and Sam still couldn’t stop thinking about it, so he did what he did best.  He got prepared.  Since ‘how to rob a bank’ isn’t something a person can exactly search using Google, he researched successful bank robberies.  He researched unsuccessful bank robberies.  He researched the type of bank he’d need to hit.  He researched security systems and response times.  He bogged himself down in research.

Sam came to the conclusion he was going to need help.  He recruited Charlie, a computer whiz who had been a friend of his since the third grade, to help with getting past security.  Her arrival at their home had forced Sam into revealing his plans to Dean and Cas.  Cas was on board from the get-go.  Dean started in on how this was not what Sam had gone to law school for.  This prompted quite a bit of ribbing from Charlie—things like ‘how far the mighty have fallen’ and ‘are you going to be your own attorney if we get caught?’

Sam was not going to be derailed, though.  He was going to see this through.

Dean eventually came around.  He’d left his bedroom late the next morning, saying he was in.  Sam wasn’t about to ask what changed his mind once he noticed the giant hickey on Dean’s neck and the funny little limp he walked with for the rest of the day.

So, the four of them prepared.  They picked their mark and began to plan.  Charlie somehow (she refused to tell) got her hands on the bank’s blueprints.  Dean wound up borrowing several handguns from his “friend,” Benny.  Sam thought the guy was shady as fuck, but this meant they didn’t have to go buy weapons and potentially set off red flags, so he figured he could overlook that.  

The four of them worked over logistics for over a week.  Each day, Sam could see the dark circles under Dean’s eyes get a little bit darker.  Each time they practiced shooting in one of the vacant fields outside of town, his aim was a little less true.  Each night, he’d spend at least an hour in the bathroom, and everyone else pretended they hadn’t noticed the pained sobs that could be heard through the door.

Finally, it was time.  They were ready.  They had every detail of the robbery planned out and set.  Nothing was being left to chance.  They had accounted for every possible contingency.

Well, all except one.

And really—what were the chances that someone else would try to rob the very same bank on the very same night?

.

Gabriel was desperate.  

He hated feeling this way.  Hated how, if someone he’d gone to high school with were to see him now, they probably wouldn’t recognize him.  That vivacious, carefree, practical jokester had been replaced by an overly stressed-out dormouse.  He had to get out.

It had started with a haircut.  Brady, that stupidly attractive med-school student who’d asked for his number after Gabriel had served him his coffee and biscotti, had said that Gabriel’s eyes were devilishly attractive, but it was just a shame that his hair was always blocking them.  The next day, Gabriel had shown up to work with about three inches less hair, neatly parted and hair-sprayed to his skull.

When they’d started dating, Brady was quick to pick up the tab for everything.  Said Gabriel deserved to have only the best things in life.  And it was only fair that since Brady was paying, that he was the one who chose whatever they were doing, even if wearing a suit and attending an art gallery was about the last place Gabriel actually wanted to be.

When they moved in together, Brady was the one to pick out the apartment.  He was the one to pick the furnishings.  He was the one who decided that goldfish were the only pets they needed, even though they bored Gabriel to tears (seriously—who doesn’t love dogs?).  

About three months after they started living together, Gabriel began noticing his clothes were suddenly fading to blacks and whites and greys.  All of the fun colors and designs he’d worn while working at the coffee shop—a job he adored, but quit (and he’s still not sure what Brady said to convince him to quit)—began to disappear from his half of the closet.  When he asked Brady about it, the answer had been that Gabriel deserved the nicest clothes, and his other clothes were being put in storage.

Then came the off-handed comments about his weight.  According to Brady, the sweets he ate were giving him quite the tummy.  At night, when Gabriel curled up in bed, Brady would remark at how his arms barely fit around his middle.  For his last birthday, Brady had given him a membership to a gym—the best gym—along with a set of workout clothes in a brand new gym bag.

Still, Brady was the one who’d made it to college, the one paying for everything, the one he thought he loved.

It wasn’t until he got a call from one of his former co-workers, Anna, that Gabriel finally acknowledged that something was wrong.  She said he’d just crossed his mind the other day, and she was wondering how he was doing.  He told her all about the new car Brady had purchased a few weeks before and how he couldn’t wait to drive it.  She told him about her son, and how big he was getting.  How she couldn’t believe how fast time flew—he was turning one in just a few weeks!

That bit of news made Gabriel pause.  The last he remembered seeing Anna, she’d been waddling about the cafe and he’d teased her about being ready to pop!  How the hell was her son almost a year?

She’d ended the call a little later, asking if it was alright to call that number again to talk with him.  Every time she’d tried his cell phone, she got a message that his number had been disconnected.  The day before, she managed to track down a number to reach Brady, and she’d honestly been surprised when Gabriel had answered, since she figured it was Brady’s cell number.

Gabriel was absolutely beside himself as he hung up the phone.  He hadn’t realized an entire freaking year had passed since he quit his job.  He hadn’t even realized he’d gone an entire freaking year without speaking to any of his friends.  What the hell was Brady doing to him?

As much as he wanted answers, Gabriel really needed out.  He couldn’t think in Brady’s apartment, surrounded by Brady’s things while wearing Brady’s clothes.  He changed as fast as he could—Brady would be home soon—into one of the last remaining outfits of his own still hanging in the closet.  He grabbed the keys to his beat-up old car and was on the road.

The further he drove, the angrier he got.  He thought back to all of the things he’d wanted to do with his life.  He thought about all of the friends he’d lost contact with over the course of a year.  He thought about how little of himself actually still existed, and how much of Brady had taken over.

But what was he supposed to do?  He had no money to his name, no job, no friends—nothing.  He couldn’t get away.  Brady had effectively cut him off from everything that wasn’t him.  He’d made Gabriel so dependent upon him, to the point that Gabriel began to hyperventilate from the fear of having to go back to that.  Having to go back to that apartment and be surrounded by those things and wear those clothes.

How stupid could he be?

Pretty fucking stupid, actually.  And reckless.  And desperate.  Why else would he be attempting to sneak into a bank in the middle of the night to try and get anything he could fit in his gym bag to get away?  And if he got arrested?  Well, that would probably still be better than winding up back with Brady.

But why the hell was this so easy?  How had he managed to not trip a single alarm?  And who were these other guys in ski masks?

.

“Well this is just fucking phenomenal.” Sam snatched his radio from the floor next to his duffle bag.  “D, man, you guys had one fucking job.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” came the staticky response.

“I’m talking about how I am now trapped in this vault with some nutjob.”  

“Shit.”

Gabriel glared at him.  “Watch who you’re calling a nutjob, asshat.”

“I’m not the one who waltzed into a bank all willy-nilly expecting to be able to rob the place.”

“So you _planned_ on robbing a bank when you woke up this morning?” Gabriel gave him a very pointed look.  “I think that qualifies _you_ as being the crazy one in this relationship.”

“I’m not the one who triggered the vault door to close!”

“If you were half the criminal mastermind you seem to think you are, you should have had it fixed so it wouldn’t do that!”

“Sa—S, hang on—I’ve got uh—C working on getting the vault open again.”

“The sooner the better,” Sam snarled. .

“I don’t owe you any sort of explanation, but I need that money.” Gabriel pointed his—well, Brady’s penlight at Sam’s face.  “I—I can’t go back.”

“What?  You think you’re going to garner my sympathies because your mommy and daddy kicked you out?” Sam scoffed and shined his flashlight in Gabriel’s face.  He was momentarily caught off-guard by the sheer terror in the shorter man’s eyes.  “If you think I’m just going to hand over this money to you, you’re out of your damn mind.”

“I’m not scared of you.” Gabriel threw back his shoulders and puffed up his chest and tried to get his heart to stop trying to beat its way out of his ribcage.  “I need that money.”

“And I don’t?  You don’t even know me.  You don’t know what I have to go through—every day, watching him get worse.  You think your life is shit?  Try watching your older brother die a little every damn day, all while knowing there’s shit you can do to fix it.”

“S—shit.” Dean sounded absolutely horrible.

What were they thinking, bringing him along?  He could barely hold a gun, much less have the energy and strength to help pull off a bank robbery.

“Dean Winchester, I swear to god, if you don’t give me that fucking radio, I will jam it down your throat!”

That was Cas’s voice coming through Sam’s radio now.  He must not have realized Dean was still holding down the button allowing their voices to come through.

“S—I’ve got to get your brother out of here.” Cas must have managed to extract the radio from Dean’s tired grip.  “C says it should be just another minute before the vault door is—ah, there it is.”

As Sam’s gaze turned to the vault door that had just clicked open, Gabriel took advantage of his momentary distraction to change out his gym bag for the other man’s bag full of money.  

Sam spotted his brother slumped against the wall, with Cas kneeling next to him.  He snatched up the bag at his feet and turned to glare at Gabriel.

“Get the fuck out of here,” he snarled before rushing out of the vault and to his brother’s side.

Gabriel was on his way out when he stopped.  The man he’d just been trapped in the vault with was calling out the name ‘Dean.’  He turned around in time to see the man who was probably the ‘Dean’ in the situation being hefted into his vault-buddy’s arms.  

Sam looked over his shoulder to see the other man still standing there, watching them.  He wanted to be furious, but his brother’s unconscious state had him more worried than anything.  Had they waited too long?  Were they getting this money too late to save him?  

He shifted his hold on Dean and followed Cas, who had grabbed the bag of money, out of the bank.  They needed to get the fuck out of there and get Dean to the hospital, now.

.

_Six months later…_

.

“You!”

Gabriel looked up from his newspaper to stare into a pair of hazel eyes he was sure he’d never see again.  “Fuck.”  All he’d wanted was to try the breakfast at the new restaurant in town.  Ever since he’d gotten his own place three states over from Brady, he’d enjoyed trying new things.  It made him feel a little more like his old self every time he did.

Having his waiter glaring at him as if he were contemplating all the ways he could murder him was not high on his to-do list.

“Get the fuck out of this restaurant.”

“I’m just here for breakfast, man.”

“Really?  You sure you aren’t here to gloat?  Talk about how you walked away with the money that was supposed to save my brother’s life?”  Sam was ready to climb over the table to strangle the piece of shit.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, please.  I wouldn’t forget those fucking eyes of yours.  Looking scared in an attempt to hide what a monster you are!”

A few of the restaurant’s other patrons turned to look at them as Sam’s volume increased.

“Sam, will you relax before you cause a scene?”  Feigning ignorance hadn’t worked—maybe appealing to his sensibility might.

“If a scene gets you out of here, good.”  Sam was seeing red.  “Do you know where I went that night after you left?  I had to go to the fucking hospital.  I had to carry my brother to a hospital because we couldn’t get him conscious!” He sucked in a breath.  “And then to find out that we had nothing?   _Nothing?_  Do you have any idea how much chemo costs?  Do you have any fucking idea how much we were counting on that money to save his life?  And you just walk off with it like it was no big deal?  I swear to god, the only reason I haven’t gutted you for screwing my brother over like that is because we somehow managed to get a donation that covered all his medical bills.  If he had died, I would have hunted you down and ripped your throat out.”

“So Dean’s better, then?”

“Oh, _now_ you’re worried about him?”

Gabriel flashed him a small smile.  “I’ve been worried about him—and you—since that night in the bank.”

Just like that, the wind was knocked out of Sam’s sails.  His anger began to deflate.  

What the fuck?

“What the fuck?”

Gabriel just sighed.

“You?  You’re the anonymous donor?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Why?  Why the hell would you do something like that?”  He’d been living with this rage against the man just a table’s width away from him for six months.  Only to find out he’d been the one to save Dean’s life.  That just didn’t seem possible.

“I couldn’t forget your eyes either.”


End file.
